The Shiva Life

WE live on a planet constantly in motion, and except for the occasional natural catastrophe, a usually very slow, orderly motion.

The Earth is billions of years old and still in the making, where glacial cycles come and go, continents move, mountains form and erode.

Scientists investigate everything from the hypothetical big bang to the smallest geologic and biologic forces. But where Earth came from, how evolution works,

…and why and how life itself arose, is still the most profound mystery in science.

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Masquerade

Animal Souls

THOSE who think Theosophy is only about abstract metaphysics, invisible worlds and mystical hierarchies, might want to think again.

The old theosophical teachings, referred to as the “Wisdom Religion,” are very much about getting down to Mother Earth.

It’s about respecting the billions of sentient, non-human entities — animals and plants that surround and support our existence — many of whom are still being used and abused.

In her 19th century re-presentation of Theosophy, H. P. Blavatsky was not abstract when it came to standing up for the planet (“help Nature and work on with her”,) and against what she saw as widespread animal abuse and cruelty.

Not a radical vegan, she nevertheless supported the health and spiritual values of a non-meat diet.

Travel Light

CHINESE doctors described more than 5000 years ago, hundreds of energy meridians in the human body. When these pathways were unblocked and reactivated, people were quickly healed.

Today that ancient system of healing is called acupuncture. And  many practitioners are tapping, literally, into this natural healing system of the body without needles, using only their hands.

Ordinary people are learning how to master all the “mental changes” in themselves, as taught by The Voice of the Silence.

More importantly, we learn how to “harmless make” the stubborn thought and emotional issues that plague us and cause physical and psychological illness.

The phenomena an object lesson in what Einstein meant when he famously wrote“We can’t solve problems, by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Instead the old thought forms blocking the flow of natural energies in our system have to be cleared. As we free ourselves from old habits of thinking, we come to recognize our hand in the problems they cause.

Wounded Souls

HUMAN casualties of war wear two opposite yet related faces — those who are injured and killed, and those who injure and kill them.

The devastation for both is long-lasting, evidence shows. Sometimes, as we will see, restoring spiritual peace and health for either side may involve lifetimes.

Wounds received on both sides transcend the body, although physical scars have been shown to bridge lifetimes. War experiences are deeply rooted, leaving souls in desperate need of emotional, and psycho-spiritual healing.

But surprisingly, sometimes just remembering, and owning a past life tragedy, can heal the effects of personal trauma.

One of H. P. Blavatsky’s most powerful stories, “Karmic Visions,” opens in a battle, with “a camp filled with war-chariots, neighing horses and legions of long-haired soldiers.”

An old gray-haired prophetess stands defiantly before her captor, the cruel Clovis, King of the Franks. Taunted by the woman, who refuses to tell where the enemy’s treasure is hidden, Clovis loses patience. The story goes that he kills her by angrily plunging his spear into the her throat.

Separation Syndrome

TODAY humanity is divided into sects and cults, castes, creeds and classes, religious denominations and political ideologies. Instead of being bearers of love and cooperation, we still engage in criticizing, opposing and attacking each other.

A united world has been the hope of humanity for ages. Poets and philosophers have dreamed of it. Statesmen and politicians are trying to find a solution to the great problem of disunity.

They have not succeeded because the approach is usually reductionist instead of holistic. Our obsession with the trees of sectarian differences and selfish, materialistic agendas, we never see the forest as whole.

It is not through legislatures that harmony and peace can be established between different nations. What is needed is a sea change of mind and heart, a basis of universal ideas and facts as given out by the great spiritual teachers down the ages.

Mme. Blavatsky, in her Key to Theosophy, Section 12, describes four Links of a Golden Chain that, if implemented, would bind humanity into one universal family. They are:

“Universal Unity and Causation – Human Solidarity – the Law of Karma – Reincarnation.”

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“From Gods to men, from Worlds to atoms, from a star to a rush-light, from the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic being,” Blavatsky memorably wrote (SD 1:604), “the world of Form and Existence is an immense chain, whose links are all connected.”

Murder for God 2

FEW honest and sincere believers have the faintest conception of the history surrounding the early beginnings of the Church.

Almost everyone is familiar with what is recorded in the New Testament concerning the differences of opinion that arose between Peter and Paul. But how many are aware of the fact that this split continued to grow?

For several centuries after the time of Jesus the best and most prominent of the Church Fathers were irreconcilably divided among themselves on issues of basic doctrine.

In order to retain power and authority, the dominant sectarians inaugurated a custom never before known in the recorded annals of religious history — the custom of anathema.

These Churchmen were too narrow and dogmatic in belief to allow room for natural divergences of opinion, which alone could have made of Christianity a vital and healthy organism. The result was a course of action diametrically opposed to the principle of tolerance reflected in the life of their declared inspiration, Jesus of Nazareth.

Having no faith in their capacity to win the adherence of thinking minds, the Church Fathers used anathema for the purpose of “persuading” those who could not be converted — and of silencing those not to be persuaded.

For the millennium “beginning with Buddha and Pythagoras at one end and the Neo-Platonists and Gnostics at the other, is the only focus left in History,” says Mme. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine — (see Holy Heretics) —

“… wherein converge for the last time the bright rays of light streaming from the æons of time gone by, unobscured by the hand of bigotry and fanaticism.”

Murder for God 1

Rachel Weisz as Hypatia

THE fourth century was the turning point in the history of the Western world, the period in which Christianity took the form of a strong political organization.

Throttling the old religions, sciences and philosophies, “the Church” arose as a temporal power upon their remains.

At the same time, admiring crowds began gathering at the door of the academy where the learned and unfortunate Hypatia taught.

Hypatia, expounding the doctrines of the divine Plato and Plotinus, thereby impeded the progress of Christian proselytism.

She successfully dissipated the mists of the religious “mysteries” invented by the Christian Fathers, and was therefore considered dangerous.

H. P. Blavatsky writes in Isis Unveiled:

“This alone would have been sufficient to imperil both herself and her followers.”

The city of Alexandria is interesting to the Theosophical student, for there, just fifteen hundred years ago, existed the last great Theosophical School in history — the School which was begun by Ammonius Saccas, (called theodidaktos, or “god-taught”), and ended with the death of Hypatia.